Ninja can't fly
by IncandescentOne
Summary: Naruto finds a DBZ comic and ironically decides to model his life after Goku, Naruto doesn't do things by half!


Ninja can't fly – By Incandescence. All rights reserved (Totalling: no rights)

Eh?! Ever thought that Naruto is a big DBZ ripoff? Bet you never thought of Naruto ripping off DBZ? Naruto reading DBZ comics.

AN:So uh… I got bored and felt Satirical… True story.

This fic assumes good knowledge of Naruto and that the reader has seen all of DBZ. I do not know if there _are_ any DBZ comics/manga, I've only seen the series and I have completely fabricated the comics as they're an easier/more believable medium.

This is just for fun, I'm not going to put much effort into it. Any discrepancies or overly short scenes, well… meh…

---)(---

Naruto was feeling anxious about the upcoming Genin exam, he had thought about doing something really, _really_ flashy to take his mind off it but he had decided against it. He needed to practice, he needed to pass this time but it was hard to practice when nobody had taught you anything, really all he knew was the Transform technique and he could practice that anywhere.

Naruto paused for a moment. Practice was all fine and good but he had to know his level, a transformed ninja that was easily spotted was worse than a ninja without transformation at all, at least without it they were expecting someone to catch them if they were seen.

Of course he was in an ideal position, he could just go into a shop under a transformation. He wasn't stupid enough not to notice nobody else had trouble with shops, just him. Well at least he could make the most of it.

---)(---

Naruto walked down the main street in the shopping centre of Konoha and he was getting more than a little attention, though all of it good. Well, at least those giving him attention would say so, Naruto himself was feeling more than a little uncomfortable for he was currently in his best transformation, a rather buxom blonde – properly clothed – with rather alluring proportions and no whisker marks, definitely no whisker marks, they would get him found out in no time.

Ideally he would be someone less conspicuous, or so he had been told at the academy, blend in and all that. Of course this was hampered by his generally low level of skill in transformation, most of the time he would make a mistake unless his transformation was simple. This rule didn't apply to his Sexy Technique™ which he thought should be its own Ninjutsu all of itself – and obviously rated far higher than the transformation technique.

So he was in his Sexy Transformation – clothed – to test that out before moving on to less tested waters. So far so good, if you ignored the leers he was receiving from anyone with a Y chromosome.

He wasn't exactly sure what shop to go into, he needed to actually buy something or else he would look suspicious, or so he thought. He didn't exactly do much shopping, so naturally he assumed that you just went into a shop to buy stuff, fair assumption.

Casually Naruto kept his pace looking left and right. Nearing the end of the shopping area of the street Naruto became less and less picky about his chosen shop, it would look suspicious to just stop and turn around so he had to go into one of the remaining ones, none of which he wanted anything from either. With a grimace he headed for a book shop, if nothing else he would be able to get something ninja related, right? It would only make sense to sell ninja books in a ninja village.

---)(---

Browsing the shelves, everyone browses, nothing to see here. Naruto was so nervous he was almost sweating, had they caught him? The clerk was staring intently at him but he couldn't be sure if he had been rumbled or if the clerk would like to rumble (wink, wink). Naruto shuddered slightly, he really should work on other transformations, pronto, stat, asap. He 'subtly' (swiftly) moved to the back of the store to avoid further leering, if only for a little while. The Ninja books were at the front so being at the back of the store was detrimental to his overall goal but he would stay here for a while to regain his composure. Being a Ninja is tough.

While browsing Naruto spotted a handful of comics on a rotating stand-thing. There were very few, he supposed there was little need for action comics in a Ninja village, they had real-life stories to pass around, though the drawings _were_ good and he _did_ enjoy comics. Naruto scanned the front covers for something suitably flashy and awesome, he was a simple person with simple needs. Big, flashy, explosions. Simple needs.

Only one stood out as having explosions of any sort but they were indeed suitably flashy and in fact it looked like something Naruto would really enjoy. Although it was volume 5 of… an unknown number, he decided to take it anyway, perhaps they had some more stored in the back or something, he could ask. A full conversation, definitely putting his transformation to the test as he would have to keep his voice believable as well, tricky!

He quickly grabbed the comic – Dragon Ball Z Vol.5 – and began to read the blurb on the back as he made his way to the counter. _Goku reaches Namek just in time to save Gohan and Krillen from the Ginyu Force. After a month of training in increased gravity as he travelled, can Goku save the day?_ Naruto looked up just as he reached the counter and he already had the clerk's full, undivided, complete attention. Forcing himself into the role Naruto smiled sweetly at the man as he laid the comic down on the counter. The clerk scrambled to ring up the comic and before Naruto could ask about any more DBZ comics, he offered his services. "Is there anything else you would like Miss?"

Smiling once again Naruto responded. "Yes, actually… do you have any more from that series in stock?"

The clerk looked around quickly, as if that would provide the answers. "I'm not sure, I'll just go check the back for you, one moment please!" and with that he rushed off, eager to help the pretty 'girl'.

As he waited, Naruto decided his current transformation was definitely up to standard, he would have to check with an actual ninja for how well he could stand up to someone capable with chakra, that is if he could find anyone willing to help him.

The clerk returned, looking apologetic and holding a book rather than a comic. "Ah sorry, Miss, this is all we have. I'm sure I can order some more in for you if you like?" Naruto pouted unconsciously, he had wanted to start from the beginning. "Ah here, have this, on the house! Would you like me to order some more in for you?" Naruto brightened up and looked at the book. 'EnZyclopedia' where the Z was drawn like the Z from DBZ, witty! "Guide to everything DBZ, characters, moves, explosions, etc." Ah, that would definitely be useful! At least he would be able to understand what he was reading since he wasn't starting from the beginning.

Naruto nodded. "Yes, please." He smiled again and the clerk turned red. Quickly the clerk rung up the comic and put it together with the book in a bag. He hesitated before asking for the money for the comic, as if Naruto would be offended that he had to pay for stuff. Really, he should always go shopping like this, the book looked way more expensive than the comic itself. Of course Naruto was still no less uncomfortable and once he had his hands on the comic, he beat a hasty exit, leaving a dazed and blushing clerk in his wake.

---)(---

Naruto sat on the floor in his room virtually drooling over the magazine he was reading. It was _Awesome_. He _had_ to be able to do this stuff. It started out with some kids getting beaten up by this guy with a weird elongated face and a mop on his head in weird armour. Then this Goku guy showed up in a space ship which had increased gravity after having been doing stuff like 10,000 pushups at a time for a month solid. That was pretty damn hardcore! So he got out of the spaceship and _kicked ass_. Then there was this thing with some short guy with sticky-up hair who was talking about some super something or other, then more _ass-kicking_, then the purple one switched bodies with Goku, but that was boring so Naruto skipped it, then this short white guy with a tail appeared and the comic ended.

Naruto quickly re-read the first part where Goku came and owned everyone. That was his dream, Goku's friends or whoever were cheering for him, wait one of them was Goku's son! But they were confident Goku would save them, Naruto wanted that. He wanted someone to think of him like that.

Of course step one would be to be as strong as this Goku guy, he was awesome!

Naruto was about to try and do 10,000 pushups when he remembered the EnZyclopedia (Witty!) and he looked up all the people in it.

_Goku – Goku is a happy go-lucky kind of guy, the main protagonist for this series he loves fighting and never gives up. This determination and passion is his trademark. He was brought up by Gohan, a master of the Kame style and was later taught by Gohan's prized pupil, who is a complete lech. The Z saga begins when Goku's lost brother appears demanding Goku return with him to become a soldier for Freeza. Throughout the series Goku gets stronger and stronger through hard training and the sometimes desperate need to protect the Earth – and sometimes the entire galaxy._

_-Note:Though he never knew his biological father, Bardock, he was probably the strongest of the Sayans before Freeza nigh wiped them all out. Even though Goku started life with a power Level of 1 and was dismissed by all those around him it was his fiery spirit and determination which won through against all those thought his betters._

Naruto decided right then and there that he was going to model his life after this. He was obviously Goku. Duh. Now he just needed the rest of the story and he would be set. Naruto wanted to know more about the story but at the same time he was bursting with enthusiasm for training and becoming that strong. There was only one vital piece of information he needed. What the hell were those big blast things everyone was firing around all willy nilly?!

_Ki: Ki is the Aura, derived from physical strength and martial prowess, it is the fighting force behind everything in the world of DBZ. The higher ones power level, the more Ki they can utilize at any one time and the greater their stamina the more Ki they have overall, neither power nor stamina is more important but rather the best fighters have a balance of both._

_Note: Brolly is the only exception to this rule as his stamina is nigh infinite and his power grows the longer he is unleashed from the bonds his father put over him – See Brolly in the Character section._

Right, it was all set then. He needed Ki and Martial prowess, for he already had tons of stamina. He would work on raising his 'power' whatever that was, when he could do those funky energy moves, until then his main priority was Ki.

Naruto immediately set to the floor and began doing push-ups, because Goku had done thousands of them, he should be able to at least do hundreds.

While he was doing this Naruto thought about how he would fit this into being a Ninja. Would he ignore Chakra or try to use both? Would this affect Chakra.

Chakra was made of both physical and spiritual energy, mixed together. Chakra capacity increased through use. If he vastly increased his physical energy would his Chakra become off balanced or would it stay the same but with a surplus of physical energy? That seemed to make sense, but he would have to keep up training his Chakra reserves if he wanted to keep his spiritual energy rising too.

It had only been ten minutes and Naruto was really struggling to keep doing push-ups. His arms felt like lead and his elbows didn't really feel at all. But he persevered, he didn't want to admit defeat so early on. He had given up on counting and had just judged how many push-ups per minute. At his initial rate it would have taken him around 500 minutes but at his current rate… he didn't want to even guess. He decided to rest up for a minute, no longer, and see how many he could do after that.

Surprisingly Naruto was able to restart his push-ups at almost his initial pace but was down for the count after five minutes. Still, if he could keep that kind of pace up it would only take him 550 minutes, give or take… he wasn't that good at maths…

On his next minute rest he got a calculator to work out exactly how long it would take total at this speed, the figures weren't pretty… if he continued to do 20 push-ups per minute it would take 600 minutes, including 1 break every 5 minutes. That worked out at 10 hours. It was 6pm now, that gave him two hours sleep before the Genin test…

By the time he had worked this out Naruto was overdue to begin his next five minutes push-ups, by the time he had finished and was on a break he had forgotten exactly why he was concerned, it was already his Ninja way to never give up and that was what got Goku through all his battles (though he didn't know about any of the others) so he would do this!

---)(---

At 10am the next morning Naruto awoke, on his floor, his face felt like the carpet had raped it while he slept but just in front of him was a little note.

_-You did it! 10,000 push-ups! Sleep!_

There was drool on the nearest corner. Naruto got up, he absentmindedly turned off the alarm, it was quieter than usual, normally that only happened when it had low batteries but he had only changed them recently. He looked to the display to check how bright the numbers were, they were fairly dim too, the batteries must've been dodgy, damn shop owners…

Checking again Naruto actually read the time and had an on-the-spot panic-attack. It was 10am… _10am!_ He was entirely screwed! No wonder the thing was quiet, it had been beeping at him for two hours solid. He definitely felt better for those extra two hours sleep though, and he felt bad. He shuddered to think how bad he would've felt had he woken up in time. There would be no way he would've passed the Genin Exam.

Shit! The Genin Exam! Naruto quickly ran out of his house (Already dressed as he had fallen asleep clothed, though he didn't smell too hot right at that moment in time) lest he digress again. The Exam was the first thing that day, and that school day had started a while ago…

---)(---

Naruto in fact arrived just in time to find out that everyone in the class had passed. Not him though, he hadn't even been part of the class that day, completely absent. Naruto had begged and pleaded for a chance. He was sure he could do it, he already felt stronger for the training he had performed!

Even Judicious use of the Sexy Technique™ didn't help him, though it was amusing to see Iruka and Mizuki out cold for a minute or so when he tried.

In the end, Naruto didn't get a go at the Genin exam, which was his own fault, leading to him feeling even more depressed about this failure. Naruto decided the best thing to do right then would be to sit on the swing in the playground and watch everyone be happy with their families and such, because that would really make him depressed, best to go the whole hog on these things… Naruto did nothing by half. "Dattebayo…"

Naruto was startled out of his funk into a more standard depressive mood by Mizuki's voice. "Ah… 'Dattebayo?' what does that mean?"

Naruto turned very slowly to Mizuki, the effort for a proper turning just wasn't there at the moment. "Ah… uh… nothing, really. It's a colloquial Japanese linguistic quirk, like an accent or something, ya'know. Though sometimes when it's translated the Dubbers put in some words to fill the mouth movements and such and then people think that's a translation and a cult of misinformed fans appears using Dattebayo for some random phrase… Believe it!"

Mizuki scratched the back of his head. "Ah, yeah. I believe it." He mock punched the air. "Well, that's not really what I came here to talk to you about Naruto. I know how hard you are taking not being able to take the Genin exam. I believe you that you fell asleep training and overslept, which is admirable, so I'm going to let you in on a secret!" Naruto's ears perked. "There is another, special Genin Exam, it's tricky but… I think you can do it."

---)(---

Naruto skipped through the plot… uh through the forest… with a large scroll on his back until he entered a suitable clearing. Mizuki had told him to meet up somewhere but Naruto figured it didn't matter where he did the learning as long as he turned up to the meeting point within the time limit and able to perform one of the techniques on the scroll.

Flicking through the scroll most of the techniques were really complicated and dangerous, Naruto figured they weren't even real techniques and it was a test of some kind, though he couldn't figure out what. (Oh the irony…) He narrowed them down to a few choices. One was dangerous because it required too much Chakra and another required precision skill to use safely, another required the use of your eternal soul as payment, ah not that one… the other one made lots of 'boom' which could include the user. Naruto was tempted to go for lots of boom but a line of description on the first technique set bells ringing.

'…_This technique requires excessive use of chakra per unit output. The Chakra usage is directly proportional to output, can be very effective in draining Chakra reserves for training. Chakra drain can be dangerous to even those of exceptionally high reserves…'_

That one, that was the very thing. Naruto figured if he trained his Chakra reserves he would increase his Spiritual energy capacity _and_ his physical energy capacity while doing so, because Chakra required both, so both must increase to have more Chakra, right? Right. Naruto also got a kick-ass move out of the deal, now then… you make this funny cross shaped seal and…

---)(---

After a long and oft repeated scene involving Naruto, Iruka and Mizuki, the chase was off and Mizuki was surrounded by hundreds of Shadow clones. Naruto had a touch of inspiration though and decided to use Mizuki as a test subject. The original punched a nearby tree and left a decent dent, even at great cost to his hand. "Ow…"

A nearby clone punched the same tree and produced a similar effect, though it dispelled immediately afterwards. Naruto's other hand felt like it was hurt for a moment, the hand the clone had used. Odd.

So, Naruto concluded that his clones were as strong as he was and his punch had improved a fair amount from doing 10,000 push-ups, now his final test was to see whether a clone was dispelled from punching a human that hard.

---)(---

Naruto received a forehead protector from Iruka, Iruka's own forehead protector no less, then he was told to return the next day for team selections.

Naruto sat in his bed in his apartment, on his own, burdened with the knowledge that the Kyuubi had something to do with him. According to Mizuki he is in fact the Kyuubi himself, while Iruka says that he isn't but that it's inside him. Naruto wished for more information on the matter but there was none. Luckily only a small amount of trawling through his EnZyclopedia helped him out, sort of. He skipped the Androids and went straight to the B's which landed him on Baby, a parasitic organism from DBGT, which he assumed was related, since it was in the book. Apparently this thing took over it's hosts and used their bodies, but they were still two separate entities. Naruto equated his own position to that of Baby, but figured that the really large pattern on his stomach made it so he wasn't possessed.

Naruto hoped that was the case, it was rather worrying in any case to find out there's a demon in your stomach, demons are bad joojoo! Naruto decided, at around 3am, that he wasn't going to be getting much sleep done anyway and if he did get to sleep he would definitely sleep through his alarm now that its batteries were almost depleted. The obvious solution was to pick a workout exercise and keep going until he had to leave the next morning for team selections. After some Ramen that is.

Naruto handily found a small section to do with basic workout exercises in his EnZyclopedia. It said that you should workout in opposites, especially anything connected to the spine, so that one side of the balance didn't become overly strong, which could lead to a deficiency, or in the case of the spine, permanent damage. As a result he did 50/50 sit-ups and an obscure exercise where he lay on his stomach keeping his shoulders and knees above the floor for as long as possible. He rotated these, using one as a break from the other, until morning. Morning heralded Ramen and thus he felt a little better.

(Note… The Naruto Ch.1 on MangaShare hints that Naruto IS Kyuubi, but then later his parents are revealed, meaning he must be human… Odd, the meaning must be lost in translation somewhere O_o)

---)(---

When Naruto walked into the classroom the next day he was immediately assaulted by a question from a boy whose name Naruto couldn't quite remember. "Why are you here Naruto? Only those who pass are supposed to be here."

Naruto pointed tiredly to his forehead protector using only his middle finger. The boy didn't notice the insult as he huffed off, however that isn't to say it went unnoticed. By the time Sakura and Ino came screeching into the room Naruto had fallen asleep on his desk. Sakura, being the genius she is, removed the seat next to him, shuffled him along and replaced the now empty space in the middle of the table with the spare seat, landing herself next to Sasuke, with Naruto none the wiser.

Ino however wanted on the bandwagon so she grabbed Naruto's arm by the sleeve of his jumpsuit and pulled, causing Naruto to fall out of his seat and onto the floor. By the time Naruto had groggily gotten up, Ino was already in the seat arguing with Sakura. Naruto could care less at that moment either way, he just wanted his seat back, it was closest to him and was rightfully his. He grabbed the back of Ino's shirt by the collar, since she was facing away from him and he lazily yanked her out of the seat. This _lazy_ yank landed Ino on the table across the aisle from where she had been sitting a moment ago, sitting there very puzzled. Naruto just slumped into the seat and was asleep before his head hit the table.

Incensed, Ino was losing out on potential Sasuke time after all, she grabbed Naruto and hauled him up to standing, though he was still asleep. "Oy! Wake up!" She punched Naruto in the stomach for good measure, Naruto woke up, while Ino waved her hand about to help ease the pain.

Naruto slowly focused and found himself standing, which wasn't a normal waking position, next he noticed Ino holding him up. "Ugh.. Whadayawant…?"

"Why the hell are you so tired?! How _dare_ you move me out of _my_ seat by Sasuke! And how did you get that forehead protector? Hmm?!"

Naruto blinked and slowly processed the questions. "I was up all night. It's my seat. I was apprehending a Chuunin Rogue-nin, most of the night, field promotion." Naruto pushed Ino, causing her to stumble backwards and critically, let go of his shirt. Naruto then slouched into his seat and was asleep before his head hit the desk.

Naruto completely slept through the team assignments, Ino's ranting, everyone but his team leaving, Sakura's ranting about being stuck there for hours and their teacher arriving. It was only after their 'official' meeting had been postponed by twenty minutes that his team returned to the original room to find Naruto still asleep, on the desk. His forehead was gonna hurt and his back wouldn't be happy about that…

Kakashi hit Naruto on the head with his… ahem… reading material. Naruto awoke with a start. "Huh whsawhazat?" He looked around. "Ah uh.. Hi… Sensei?"

Kakashi's eye curved up, indicating a happy face, or really long blinking… you name it. "Well, now that we have everyone. Let's introduce each other… you know, likes, dislikes… dreams for the future… You start, Pinky…"

---)(---

Not having realised that Kakashi had been exceptionally late that day, Naruto was working out how best to turn up to their meeting the next day at 6am. He did wonder though, how he had been at the academy for so long, but done so little, but gave that little thought. He decided, since he was still tired, to just go straight to bed – after some Ramen of course – and use any extra time he would have the next day for training!

First he obtained some new Ramen packs, and batteries for his alarm clock, then he was set!

---)(---

The next day, 6am rolled around and Naruto was already in the clearing by the Hero's Memorial, bright and early and exercising, this time he was exercising his legs.

While he was doing this he had a clone reading through his EnZyclopedia for useful information which it would then tell to the original. He couldn't exactly read while he was doing this.

He had also sent another clone off to the bookstore in hopes of gaining more comics, the clone had been given limited money as if it were dispelled, the money it had on it would likely be lost. If there were more comics available than the clone had money for, he could always go back himself later.

"This Vegeta guy sounds a lot like Sasuke…" His clone had almost reached the end of the characters section. "complete asshole, starts off stronger than Goku but Goku beats him up and they end up rivals, with Goku always just that little bit better." The clone smirked in Naruto's direction even as he continued exercising. "That sounds about right, huh? We're gonna kick the bastard's ass and he'll never quite get good enough to beat us again, right?"

"Yeah!" *Wheeze* The clone didn't bother telling the real him the rest of the details about Vegeta but instead continued on through the book.

"Hey, Goku gets this awesome move!" The clone waved its hands around, as if that would help. "Instant transmission… He moves at the speed of light from one spot to another… _awesome_." He looked down at the real Naruto as serious as possible. "We _must_ learn that move." The real Naruto looked up at him, deadly serious and nodded.

It was around 8.30am when the comic clone returned. "Hey, what took you so long?"

The clone dispelled its transformation, reverting to a shorter, less sexy, male. "Hey, I'll have you know that _normal_ people aren't up until _normal_ times. I had to wait two and a half hours for the store to open." In a huff the clone threw its bag on the floor and dispelled itself.

Immediately the original Naruto jumped up and pointed at the cloud of smoke. "OY! What the hell?! I'm _not_ going on a _date_ with that clerk guy! I don't care how many comics he gave us free!"

The EnZyclopedia clone looked at the original funny. "Uh… what are you on about?"

Naruto whirled on his clone. "What do you mean _'what are you on about?'_ he accepted a date from that clerk guy to get more comics!"

The EnZyclopedia clone stared at Naruto for a moment. "How exactly do you know this, he said one thing then dispelled." The clone pointed to where the cloud of dust had dissipated from.

Naruto paused his tantrum to again whirl on his clone. "What do you mean _how_ he…" Naruto paused whilst pointing at his clone then looked over towards Konoha. "I…" He looked at the magazines. "No way…" He looked at his clone. "Oy dispel yourself."

The clone huffed and looked away then disappeared in a puff of smoke, the EnZyclopedia dropping to the floor within a cloud of smoke. Naruto quickly ran up to the EnZyclopedia and opened it. He was immediately flicking through it, skim reading everything. "No way, it's like I've read all this! Freaking awesome!" He immediately created a few more clones and set them to work reading his new comics and the rest of the EnZyclopedia.

The first clone to look at the new comics was a little disappointed. "Ah man… It's just the back issues 1 to 4, I bet they're not as kick ass as the later ones." The clones all murmured their agreements as they passed the comics out.

The clone who got volume 1 soon spoke out. "Hey, I think there was some other series before this one. Dragonball or something, about Goku's childhood… probably contains how he learned martial arts…" The clones all looked at each other.

"We don't really know martial arts…"

"Yeah…"

"But if we get that then we'll be missing out on all the flashy moves…"

"Yeah… ah man, that's tough."

"Hey! We have a Sensei, right? And he's supposed to be an awesome ninja, right? So he can teach us martial arts!"

"Yeah!"

"Yeah, sweet. It's settled then, no Dragonball, only DBZ."

*Wheeze*

"Looking good original, keep up the good work."

---)(---

Sakura and Sasuke had arrived at 8am, having agreed between them that there was no way their teacher would turn up at 6am. They had spotted Naruto, well, Naruto_s_ on his… their own to the side of the clearing and decided to wait on the bridge, away from… whatever the hell it is Naruto was doing. Sakura was especially pleased with this decision, Sasuke normally would've tried to use Naruto as interference on Sakura but had decided Naruto was being a little too weird to chance it today.

It was at 11am when Kakashi actually arrived, poofing into existence atop one of the posts of the wooden bridge Sakura and Sasuke were perched on. By this time Sakura had actually given up flirting with Sasuke and was leaning against the rail of the bridge perv… looking at him… with pure thoughts and flowers in her head. Sasuke was massively irritated, he had wasted his entire morning on this bridge waiting for their useless Sensei while being harassed by Sakura, it was not a good day to be Sasuke.

"You're _late_!" Sakura screeched immediately, though nobody seemed to notice.

"Yo." Kakashi blinked happily at them from behind an orange book. "No Naruto?" Sasuke pointedly looked over to where Naruto and his little gang of Naruto's were. He assumed the one exercising was Naruto… Had he been doing that the entire time they had been waiting? That sort of thing isn't natural…

Kakashi looked over to where Sasuke indicated to find Naruto exercising and… reading many comics. He raised his eyebrow but he was an experienced Ninja, he could come up with a solution to such a situation. "Ah, I see. Sakura, would you mind going over and fetching Naruto for me?"

Sakura huffed as she began walking over to Naruto's corner of the field. She hadn't gotten far when she decided she had reached a decent proximity to start yelling at him. "OY! Naruto!" She continued on her way, even as all the Narutos' activity ceased and their attention was fixed upon her. "Sensei's here. Come on." She stopped a few yards from them.

Naruto got up and looked at all his clones, he wasn't sure how long they would last so he made a new one. "Right, you continue reading, you three scout the area, you go try and get us out of that date."

The clones all saluted mockingly. "Sir, yes sir!" and they were off. Naruto was tired but he was looking forward to his first day as a Ninja and this mysterious survival training they were going to go through.

Sakura couldn't help but ask. "Uh, date, Naruto?"

Naruto chuckled nervously. "It's a complete misunderstanding; one of my clones was being stupid." Naruto then quickly shuffled off towards the bridge, leaving Sakura to wonder what the hell that meant, and what was with having all those clones pretend to do stuff. I mean sure, it's impressive that he could maintain them for so long but they're only illusions… She decided that Naruto was just weird like that and gave it no further thought.

They returned to the bridge to find Kakashi standing waiting for them and Sasuke having not moved at all, though Naruto didn't know that.

"Right. Now then, I have these two bells…"

---)(---

Team 7 passed, though really they shouldn't have. Naruto's performance was rather more lacklustre than usual as he was tired, not having meant to do 7 hours solid exercise. Sakura did approximately nothing leaving Sasuke as the only person who did anything of import during the test. The problem being that none of it was relevant to what the test required, being teamwork.

Fortunately for the now official Team 7, Sakura was tied to the tree and Naruto, still harbouring a crush on her, was quick to offer her some of his food. Sakura, having skipped dinner as well as breakfast in a bid to be slim for Sasuke, was absolutely starving and willing to accept food from even Naruto. Sasuke's contribution was that he couldn't sense Kakashi anywhere. Which didn't mean much considering their respective levels of skill but it was enough for Sakura who believed that – as Sasuke had said so – it was therefore cosmically impossible for Kakashi to be anywhere near or Sasuke would've known.

Unfortunately for the now official Team 7 their first month of missions consisted of menial chores and their _Sensei_ did little (nothing) in the way of training them in the ninja arts. To Sasuke this wasn't too much of a hindrance as he had his family archives to learn from and he was dedicated to gaining strength. To Sakura, this was also good, well in her opinion anyway, as she could keep her slim figure and spy on Sasuke. To Naruto this was irritating… Goku's teacher taught him cool stuff, including that awesome Kamehamehameham… big beam thing! Hell, Goku's son got _kidnapped_ to be taught stuff by a big green guy, weird… but he came out hella strong from it. Naruto's resentment grew but he used it as fuel to fire his studies. Unfortunately it was hard to get copies of DBZ in stock, so he had to wait for a while to get new ones.

On the plus side for Naruto, his training was going well. He was working towards manifesting his Ki and using it for attacks. This meant working out a lot to boost his physical strength… lots and lots of exercise, since he didn't know any better. He also took to spying on some ninja as they practiced and attempting some of their moves. Of course with Naruto's lack of general experience in the martial arts, his attempts were fruitless at best and detrimental at worst. The only thing he had gained was general fitness including stamina, speed and strength. Though without the knowledge of how to properly apply such attributes, he was still clumsy.

His training of his Chakra capacity had also come along well. His strategy had been to exhaust his Chakra and then exercise, his theory being that if he got rid of some Chakra, he would tire his body out so his exercise would be fruitful faster. It worked! To do this Naruto had used his most Chakra exhaustive technique, a lot! Now he was able to create almost a thousand clones of himself over the course of a day. Of course after finding out – by a clone expiring from over exerting itself exercising – that he couldn't train his body with clones, he had quickly run out of things to do with them.

And so it was with little overall improvement that Team 7 set off for their first soiree into the real world of Ninja.

---)(---

Naruto had himself some good Ninja Rations™ which a clone under a sexy Transformation had garnered for him. Naruto also had a few new DBZ comics. Naruto even had a pack with some spare clothes and whatnot in it. Unfortunately what Naruto didn't have was the rest of his team and the client.

Sitting around near the gate waiting for his team and a drunk old man who claimed to be a 'super' bridge builder, Naruto decided to make a 'few' clones and send them off into the forest. Since they were acting as escorts he could do some of that thinking ahead stuff and make sure the beginning of their trip was safe, not that the area right next to the most powerful ninja village in the Elemental nations wouldn't be secure… but hey, he was bored.

Naruto then got out his newest comics, Volmes 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 12. No 11… exercising extreme self restraint Naruto put Vol. 12 back into his pack and created four clones to help him read his comics faster, not thinking about the implications such actions had.

It had only been five minutes when Sasuke and Sakura arrived. "Oy, dead last…s why are you reading comics before our first real mission?" Sasuke scrutinized the collection of Naruto's as if they were all idiots.

Sakura immediately jumped on the bandwagon. "Yeah Naruto! Try to be serious for once!" Sakura waved her fist menacingly at him.

Naruto thought Sakura was an awful lot like the descriptions of the Chichi or Bulma characters though neither had really shown up in the comics he had read so far. The differences between them were that Chichi was good at cooking and that Bulma was a genius. Sakura was smart… but Goku married Chichi…

To Naruto, who hadn't thought about the absurdity of attempting to model your life _that_ closely after a fictional comic book character, this was serious. He had to work out whether Sakura would fit the Chichi role or not. So Sakura was surprised when Naruto responded after a long pause with a completely unrelated question. "Say, Sakura… how good are you at cooking?"

Sakura was just confused. "What the hell? What's that got to do with anything?" Naruto pondered. Was she shy about her skill, too angry to answer or was she poor at cooking? Perhaps he could go at this from a different Angle, Bulma was way smarter than Chichi, she made space ships and stuff…

"Say… Sakura you're really smart, right? Like the smartest girl out of our class right?"

Again Sakura was confused but with Sasuke so close by she had a reason to flaunt her intellect without seeming big (fore)headed. "Why yes, actually I easily out-scored all the other girls in our class on such tests." Sakura cleverly didn't mention that she had out scored Sasuke too, he might not like that…

Naruto's head bowed dejectedly. "Ah." He still thought Sakura was the most awesome girl he knew, she had pink hair! Long flowing pretty pink hair! She was a bit easy to anger, especially at him… but her hair was so pretty! It was a tough choice, but Goku seemed to really like Chichi… well her cooking that is. But he was going to be like Goku one day so he couldn't keep chasing after Bul… ah… er… Sakura any longer.

Sakura, having expected something more, hoping it would be more questions on how awesome she was so she could answer them in front of Sasuke, was confused. Naruto had just gotten quiet and dejected at her answer, but hadn't he known that already? Really Naruto was so weird sometimes. "Well?"

Naruto looked at Sakura. "Uh… What?"

Sakura continued. "Why were you asking those questions?" Sakura glanced at Sasuke, completely unsure as to whether he was paying attention but banking on his superb ninja skills to be aware of his surroundings, she figured he had to be.

Naruto looked away, down the road they would soon be following. "Ah well…" He trailed off, suddenly thinking of his life in terms of the road he was now about to traverse. He couldn't really say 'You're the wrong comic character, you're marrying Vegeta, sorry.' That was especially depressing since he figured Sasuke would be his Vegeta and Sakura was already, as she claimed, in love with him. In the end he half stole a line he had heard in a Princess Fuu movie once. "I guess your road and mine, they're not heading the same way I don't think."

Sakura had no idea what Naruto was on about. Well, she knew what he meant, that their fates would take them in separate directions, but she didn't know how he knew this or why he came out with it then or anything relevant at all. "Uh… Yeah." Hell, maybe he'd stop asking her for dates?

Naruto didn't bother turning back towards Sakura but got out his comic and joined the huddle of Naruto's all reading their own. The closest one whispered to him. "Bulma huh?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"That road line was pretty deep dude."

"Ah yeah, I… We saw it in a Princess Fuu movie."

"Well it wasn't exactly the same."

There was a pause between all the Narutos as they stared off into space. Before one broke out into giggles. "Hehe a pigeon… He fell for that!" The other Naruto's looked at this one strangely.

"Yo!" Kakashi suddenly materialised by his team. Already reading his book.

Sasuke glanced at Kakashi, he was used to this by now, he quickly braced himself for the unnecessary loudness to follow.

Sakura whirled around to face Kakashi and immediately exploded. "YOU'RE LATE!" She pointed her trembling index finger at him, as if it were a mighty weapon full of anti-Kakashi-peril.

Kakashi's one visible eye glanced over to Naruto. "Ah well a rogue pigeon accosted me on my way here but it turned out to be a clown so I had to follow him to make sure he got to where he should be going." Sakura missed Kakashi's pointed look at Naruto but Sasuke didn't, though he had no idea what it could mean.

"Liar!" Sakura's finger of anti-Kakashi-peril nigh vibrated under her angry tension.

Naruto – one of him – immediately broke out into giggles.

Sakura immediately whirled round on him. "What's so funny Baka?!"

The Naruto's all decided it wasn't a good idea to tell her that one of him was the pigeon as she might become angry at him. "Ah nothing Sakura."

---)(---

Oh man, i just found this on my computer and read it, this is fucking AWESOME! I'm gonna post it then read it again. I can't remember when I wrote this but it's awesome!


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